Swahili

Swahili (called Kiswahili in the language itself) is the mother tongue of the Swahili people (Waswahili), who inhabit several large stretches of the Indian Ocean coastline from southern Somalia to northern Mozambique. Although only 5-10 million people speak it as their native language, Swahili is a lingua franca of much of East Africa and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, is a national or official language of four nations, and is the only African language among the official working languages of the African Union.